Hi! I’m Melina, Founder and Director of Elevate Literacy, and committed advocate for children’s literacy.

As a mother and a passionate fully qualified classroom teacher and literacy coach with over 20 years of experience, I had a real a-ha moment a few years ago. I was noticing an alarming pattern among children that struggled to grasp the concepts of reading the way it was being taught in the classroom. It wasn’t only their reading that wasn’t meeting the mark, in time the students who found reading difficult became disengaged and uninterested in learning at all. This sparked a trickle-down effect, with their behaviour and confidence also beginning to slip. Problems became less centred around reading and started to affect their overall wellbeing.

These weren’t particularly troubled children to begin with, nor incompetent, lazy, or disruptive. They had just slipped through the cracks. Our methods of teaching weren’t meeting them where they were, and they got lost.

Once I saw the patterns and watched the gap get wider, I just couldn’t deny that my new “why” was to help bridge that gap for these children. I’ve always been passionate about helping children reach their full potential with reading and writing but I realised the only way I was going to achieve palpable outcomes with certain children, was to learn a new way and equip myself with the skills to tackle this problem head on.

Watching children struggle in the classroom, as a teacher, aligned with personal experience when my own son reached reading age…

Being a mother to one of the very children I was initially inspired to help ignited an undeniable passion to seek out and learn evidence-informed practices that would help me reach every child. I wanted the means to widen the net, so no more kids slipped through. I could no longer ignore my calling.

In 2022, I established Elevate Literacy, and I’ve been providing one-on-one literacy intervention ever since.

In my practice, I see children evolve almost instantly as they realise, they actually “get it”, finally. I have seen elevation in self-esteem, self-confidence, and literacy. I have experienced mood transformations in my students from nervous or restless learners to engaged, happy and relaxed readers.

My “why” has become my “why didn’t I sooner”, and now every day I have purpose. To give all children an opportunity to read and be empowered by education again.

Melina’s qualifications

• Bachelor of Education (Primary) - University of Tasmania

• Introduction to the Science of Language and Reading - La Trobe University

• Sounds-Write

• Sounds-Write in Years 3-6

• PLD Synthetic Phonics within the Junior Primary

• PLD Synthetic Phonics and Beyond

• Language for Life - Lifelong Literacy